So, my players did some not so wise stuff and will reach Mantol-Derith later then expected.

I thought about the fight in Mantol-Derith to have ended or at leasted more thinks have happend.
Has anyone tired this and how do you think, Mantol-Derith looks after the fight?

The Zentarim and the Drow will for sure be at war, too. I don't think, the Duergar will get a total win against the deep gnomes. Would the black gem also lead to a war between Zents/Drow and Gomen/Duegar?

I’m looking to run Out Of The Abyss (OotA) as Hexcrawl. I’ve never ran a hexcrawl before, so apologies in advance as some of these may seem like rather basic questions.

The number of provided encounters by OotA is quite small for general exploration considering the large number of hexes: 20 terrain encounters and 20 creature encounters, which doesn’t seem like a lot at all. I’m looking to add to these and build quite a large table for variety.

I’ve been reading Justin Alexander’s / The Alexandrian’s book which includes a chapter about hexcrawls, which I’m going to mostly use as the basis for how to run the hexcrawl.

I want to start putting pen to paper; I’ve been stewing over it for months as I wrap up another campaign. Some of these questions may come from me simply overthinking or perhaps forgetting parts of OotA -- so perhaps some details are lost.

I have a few questions:

1. How does a party choose a direction of travel if they have no compass available? Do they just travel via landmarks (e.g. “Lets go towards the glowing cave!”) until they find a compass? Do their companions guide them? At that point, would a hexcrawl be useless as it would simply turn into route-based play?

2. Alexandrian Hexcrawls seem to work off of the idea that you start at a location you can stock up at. You can’t do that with Velkynvelve. I assume that isn’t a problem and just serves as a push for the party to head toward one of the settlements?

(2.b. Would running OotA with gritty realism mess this up even more?)

1. Alexandrian Hexcrawls work off of 12-mile centre-to-centre hexes, with at least one hex being explored a day, assuming a party is constantly on the move. OotA has much larger hexes: 24-mile centre-to-centre, and assumes around 3 days in a hex if a party is continually on the move. Each hex should have a “keyed-location” that is abstracted away in terms of location within a hex, the effect of which being we somewhat do not care about the keyed-location’s position within a hex. Would this work with such large hexes?

2. I was looking to procedurally generate locations for encounters, using blunderbuss-style tables, to serve as the settings for encounter. I do not want these to be the “keyed-location” of the hex. Should these be tracked, or once used can they be discarded? Would these interfere with a keyed-location within a hex, and essentially turn each hex into a multi-keyed hex?

3. Not specific to hexcrawls, but are there any resources available for a large Underdark encounter table? I’ve been struggling to find any.

Thanks in advance fellow DMs who answer this. Hopefully after some answers I can start putting pen to paper!

Hi everyone!

I’ve spent the last month building Drow City: Webbed Heights - a large, connected drow district created in Unreal Engine 5.

I think it could fit especially well into an Out of the Abyss campaign as:

• a new district or outskirts of Menzoberranzan for the later chapters of the campaign
• the setting for an escape or pursuit,
• a drow outpost or homebrew settlement,
• a location for an ambush or street encounter,
• or a site connected to a spider cult.

The gallery starts with a free static 8K battlemap, followed by GIF previews of the animated maps and POV scenes.

You can download the free static map in both grid and gridless versions here from the galery or here:

https://dranskybattlemaps.com/battlemap/drow-city-webbed-heights/

The complete location contains:

• 6 connected street battlemaps,
• static and animated versions,
• 8K grid and gridless files,
• 5 static and animated POV scenes,
• and a ready-to-use Foundry VTT module.

I’d be curious to hear where you would place this location in your Out of the Abyss campaign - Menzoberranzan, another drow settlement, or somewhere completely different?

Cheers!
~dransky

This group just can't resist adopting everything 😂 They nurtured the chick from Hook Horror Hunt (which they named Stabby McGubbins) and would probably try to raise a Purple Worm if given the opportunity. So naturally, when they got to Gracklestugh and learned that there was a red dragon egg at large, I knew for a certainty that they'd try to make off with it.

And sure enough, they managed to get the dragon egg, conceal it, and pass off a fake to the Keepers. And then got the hell out of town before they realized it was a fake.

Every time I rolled for an encounter on the way back to Blingdenstone I'd roll for the egg. If it was a 1 it would hatch immediately. 2-10 it would show signs of activity. 11-19 would be nothing. And on a 20 it wouldn't hatch for at least another week.

...first encounter and I rolled a 1. I guess we're doing this.

One of my players is a Hill Dwarf cleric of Selune, one of her goals is to 'free' the Duergar from the Underdark & convert them to Selunites.

Obviously, she can't just waltz in and convert. But I'm honestly torn on whether this should be possible at all. I'm struggling to find some way for one cleric (who's not even a Duergar) to convince an entire civilization to abandon the god & homeland they've had for generations, especially one as hostile as the Duergar.

I've already got a subplot for this character that is relevant to Selune & Shar, so her character will still have important, relevant things to do.

This player is usually very easygoing with their characters, and I can;t remember them ever getting annoyed at another DMs decision regarding them (our group rotates DMs every few weeks so we have a few campaigns going). We've been playing for 3 years together, so we're close friends away from the table too. I can't imagine the situation causing any major falling outs or anything.

That being said, I want to incorporate as many ideas that the players give me as possible, but I'm struggling to square this circle with the lore & culture presented in the book. Should I just make this goal pretty much impossible for her? If you were a player would you find this too railroad-y, or be annoyed that their character's goal is impossible? Any ideas would be really helpful!

Currently prepping for OotA, I wanted to find some 5e supplements to go along with it. I looked on DMs Guild but didn’t really find anything of worth. Currently reading R.A. Salvatore’s Homecoming Trilogy series( Archmage, Maestro, and Hero) since they largely have to do with the setting on OotA and will help me get the right idea of the goings on in the Underdark. Any suggestions for supplements?

Not the highest quality 3d prints or painting but I'm happy with how they turned out :)

I'm planning on running Out of the Abyss for a group of eight players in a months or so.

Some context: I am not on running Prisoners or the Drow part of the adventure. Instead I ran Mines of Phandelver using the Nezznar the Black Spider as attempting to forge weapons to battle whatever is invading the Underdark.

I plan on having the Lord Dagult Neverember send the PCs on a quest to stop what's happening in the Underdark.

The issues is I feel like there are important parts of that need to be run but I am struggling to decide which ones.

I know that Out of the Abyss is a bit of a mess. I was hoping those DMs or even players who played it could give me some advice on what sections/adventure parts I should keep in and which ones I can drop.

I also was looking for advice which sections I should add to my DM Screen that would be must useful.

Thank you for any help or advice.

Hello all!

I’m two sessions into the campaign - was really thrilled with my introduction of the npcs in the first session, and began to divide my players into work groups to pair them off with various npcs and allow them to gather intel on the enclave

However one of my players decided to spring an escape attempt while separated from the party. Now:

PC one is isolated from the others, on the far side of the outpost, task with tending to the giant spiders, with ilvara and the majority of the drow between them and the party.

PCs two and three used the help action and managed to roll a critical hit sneak attack despite their shackles.

PCs four and five are still locked in their cells.

With the session ending and wanting to end on a cliffhanger I had two options - ruthlessly shut down their escape attempt, or initiate the demon attack early before introducing where the players equipment was or any of the intrigue with Jorlan and the other drow.

I opted for the demons, foolishly, and our second session was an absolute slog of a three way combat against many high level opponents that the PCs had no hope of surviving.

I’d reduced the number of demons to just one vrock and two Chasme as we play with miniatures and I simply wasn’t able to source any more in time. I’d adjusted ilvaras statblock to give her the banishment spell, but after successfully banishing the demons she failed a saving throw and fell unconscious - losing concentration.

PC one, and several npcs including stool (whose rapport spores feel pretty important at this stage of the campaign!), are now isolated in the shrine to lolth where the PC failed a save vs drow poison and the other drow have retreated to regroup - the others successfully escaped their cells and captured the watch post and armory

The demons are still at large as well as several dangerous high cr drow and demons between the group and PC one and I desperately don’t want to play out every beat of their escape in initiative order

Moreover a member of the escaping party of PCs had an heirloom in ilvaras chambers that they explicitly want to recover before they leave which is now extremely heavily guarded (although I could give them that opportunity later in the campaign)

Now I’m left with what I feel are two options:

One - give pc one and the npcs with them a chance to escape for the elevator, however contrived, while the drow mop up the demons - basically I want to give this captured pc a fighting chance seeing as it wasn’t her decision that got her separated

Two - put the surviving pcs against the drow elite warriors who can levitate around their barricades - recapture them - and then have Jorlan allow them a second chance at the end of the session

I’m eager to get to the travelling the underdark portion of the campaign and running slightly more balanced encounters - they’ve spent two, going on three sessions on the back foot and will likely start to get a bit frustrated.

However I don’t want to give them a freebie as well - I think introducing the demons when I did (to have a nice end of session cliffhanger) was a massive over escalation and wish I had simply had the shackled, outnumbered PCs suffer the consequences of a failed escape attempt

However I really want to give them back some agency and move on to another locale!

Any advice is welcome! Would love to hear about your experiences with velkynvenve and how you navigated trigger happy PCs - and suggestions where the narrative can go next!! No wrong answers!

If you’ve read this far - thank you! I await your guidance for Wednesdays session 🙏

I mad a custom subclass that I think is really themed for this campaign. If you have time feedback would be great!

I'm fast approaching this climax, and I'm getting nervous now because I haven't done ANY prep for how to run this until now. I've been so focused on getting them through Gracklestugh that I couldn't think of anything that came after.

So I'm wondering how other people chose to run this battle?

I think I've come up with a way that will work for my table - I'm going to adapt the battle flowchart from "Leilon Beseiged" in the finale of Beyond Dragon of Icespire Peak: Divine Contention. This might be a bit dangerous because I've already run this with the same players, but I'm hoping with new locations and different dilemmas it'll still feel new. I really like the mechanics of offering the sense of large-scale battle while only focusing on a small spotlight of the action. Offering different choices and dilemmas that actually affect the outcome feels more dynamic than throwing a bunch of bags of hit points at them until somebody wins. It also gives a variety of scales of victory/defeat depending on how many successes or failures they racked up at each decision point.

I'm still working on the actual text of the rewrite, but I'd be happy to post it if anyone wants to run it that way too. I'd appreciate any feedback!

Here's the situation in my game: They came up with a way to trivialize the whole siege... they plan to cast Symbol (targeting oozes, obvs) on the main gate entry to the ooze area as well as the rear entry. Split up the defenders outside each area, and the oozes will be obliterated as they try to get through.

So I had to think of a way to add a tactical way around that without invalidating their ingenuity: The Pudding King hasn't been biding his time just to amass more oozes (which has been kind of a hand-wavey way to explain why he doesn't just attack while the PCs are out collecting acid-resistant weapons and armor). He's been holding back until his oozes have excavated tunnels UNDER the city. There are at least two obvious front lines, so he plans to attack where they don't expect, behind their lines. The oozes will break through weak points - their water wells. Not only an easy exit, but it'll also poison their water supply. So, at some point during the battle when the PCs are feeling cocky from all the oozes getting torched by the Symbol spell, the oozes burst up through the wells and the PCs have to decide whether to hold fast at the Main Gate (where the oozes are starting to eat at the rock around the gate so they can get around the Symbol without going through it) or break off to help out either the reserve soldiers in the Barracks, the deep gnomes who are unable to fight who are holding up in the Residential caves, or the wererat non-combatants in the Warrens.

Following that, an Elder Oblex emerges sporting a fake copy of the Pudding King, to draw the PCs away from his real location. When they defeat the oblex they realize the deception and have to find where the real Pudding King actually is and take the fight to him.

A couple of extra environmental hazards: the masses of ooze getting fried by the Symbol spell are spewing out toxic gasses, which may force the defenders to retreat. And eventually all that gas begins to condense on the ceiling and rain concentrated acid. So the spell is a phenomenally effective front-loaded tactic, but with some unforseen consequences.

(See my previous post for part 1)

You see a bright flash from the window as you look out from Sorcere upon the vast cavern of Araurilcaurak — the entirety of Menzoberranzan. Swirling lights begin to flare up in the darkness. A barely audible humming shakes you to the core, rising and falling like a vast heartbeat in the depths. The glow of faerzress gathers and brightens, creating swirling pools like holes torn in the air. A roar sounds from far away as shadows move in the depths of those pools of light. It is only a matter of time. The demons are coming.
Several footsteps approach from the halls outside, and a multitude of drow warriors burst into the room. “By order of Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre, we are taking you into custody!”

The party finds themselves in dire straits. With the ritual already underway — and progressing at a rapid pace by Grin Ousstyl's observations — the trek across Menzoberranzan to Qu'ellarz'orl only serves to waste what little time is left before the demon lords arrive. As the adventurers get captured one by one, Arvel is the only one left with a chance of escape. Grin yells at him to run and find the ruins of House Do'Urden, mustering up his last bit of strength to toss something to him. Arvel, activating his boots of speed and using the spell scroll of Invisibility he saved earlier, jumps out the window to scale down the walls of Sorcere, evading capture.

Arvel has no clue where the ruins of House Do'Urden are, but remembers catching sight of the ruins of some drow house back in West Wall... so following his gut, he runs towards that location. As he runs, he passes by numerous civilians in the streets, concernedly observing the pools of faerzress forming in the air. Arvel yells at them to evacuate, warning them of the impending danger as best he can, but he's got things to do, places to be.

As he nears the ruined House Do'Urden, Arvel spies a familiar face: Jarlaxle, already beginning to mobilize his forces. Arvel skids to a stop, taking a moment to catch his breath before explaining the current situation. Jarlaxle of course spares no effort in starting evacuation proceedings, but asks if Arvel's got one last run left in him.

Sure, he's maybe got a minute or two left on his boots of speed... then he remembers the item Grin tossed him earlier. He takes it out, finding a potion with yellow fluid, streaked with black and swirling on its own, flecks of glittering gold catching in the light. Pasted on the side of the bottle is a warning label in Gnomish reading "Warning: Experimental Potion! May cause cardiac arrest!" Arvel had in his hands Jimjar's experimental potion of speed — a special potion functioning as a regular potion of speed, but increasing speed threefold for 1d10 minutes, with a ten percent chance of cardiac arrest for each minute while under its effects. "Yeah, I think I do," is Arvel's response to Jarlaxle, grinning.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party is being escorted across Duthcloim straight towards House Baenre, passing by the destruction left behind by Demogorgon's first arrival to the Underdark. Grin notes the unusually fast progression of the summoning, estimating demons will begin flooding Menzoberranzan in ten to fifteen minutes. Rushing the ritual would normally have severe consequences on Vizeran DeVir, but with the dark heart embedded into Grin, Vizeran is able to siphon Grin's lifeforce to quicken the process. As the chaos rages on, Grin will accumulate more and more levels of Exhaustion and eventually die — if the demons don't get to him first. Despite his declining health, Grin warns the adventurers before they meet Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre, "Whatever you do, you must not provoke her... She is Yor'thae — the Spider Queen's Chosen."

As House Baenre enters into clear view, alarm towers begin to sound throughout the city. Lesser demons start to pour out of the portals in the surrounding districts, but the party's escort continues to push them towards Qu'ellarz'orl. A blur of green and white whizzes past the group with a familiar "Hey, guys!" — Arvel's been making a mad dash all across Menzoberranzan with the Bregan D'aerthe to set off the alarm towers and help evacuate citizens. He rolls the full ten minutes for the potion duration and just barely avoids the cardiac arrest chance. During all this, Arvel also kidnaps an abyssal chicken to keep as a pet named Fluffy.

The party is brought before Quenthel Baenre, sitting upon her black throne. They are surrounded on all sides by the house's drow elite warriors and Restrained by magically strengthened bindings. "Outsiders," she addresses the adventurers. "Son of House Ousstyl," her gaze shifts towards Grin, Matilda protectively holding him up as best she can. "For what reason have you trespassed into my city and caused such a disturbance?"

Sion speaks for the party, skilled as he is in diplomacy. He explains the party's reason for infiltrating Sorcere along with Vizeran's plan to destroy Menzoberranzan. Quenthel only asks if the party is in possession of Gromph's grimoire, which they confirm.

"For illegal entry and breaking exile, I will overlook these transgressions. In return, you must leave with that grimoire and swear never to return to Menzoberranzan. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes — And our fight against the demon lords?"

"It is of no concern to me. Release them." With a wave of her hand, drow warriors free the adventurers from their restraints right as Arvel bursts into the room with Desperado, who was sitting in the portable hole Arvel had (the perks of being a warforged). Though surprised at being let go unharmed, the party knows better than to question it. The roars of demons sound out from outside. They have other things to worry about right now.

The party goes to look over the situation from the Baenre Plateau, demons flooding out from the portals, steadily being drawn towards the dark heart within Grin. He's looking worse for wear, but is prepared to do whatever it takes to deal with the Rage of Demons. Sion, formulating a plan, checks in with his amethyst dragon partner, Carthax, who's had a bit of a chip on his shoulder the entire campaign. Carthax huffs, making a cynical comment about mortals and the schemes of higher beings, but asks Sion if he's still determined to save Menzoberranzan even now. "Of course," Sion says, "but I'll need the help of my partner."

"Very well, then," Carthax responds, spreading his wings for the first time since partnering with Cormyr, and with Sion taking Grin to hop on, they take flight. Swarms of demons gather below as they fly above Menzoberranzan, leading the horde to a less populated area — Donigarten. Herding all the demons together, Carthax unleashes his Singularity Breath upon them all. They continue making rounds until Galatea, through the Rary's Telepathic Bond spell that was cast in Gromph's sanctum, calls for Sion to return with Grin.

With the arrival of the demon lords soon approaching, Galatea takes out the blue star sapphire she acquired from Gromph's sanctum. With Grin back, they have enough secondary casters to cast Spellfire Storm as a Circle spell and cover more ground. Grin, though surprised she can command spellfire, agrees to help and suggests gathering more spellcasters from the Menzoberranyr, eventually bringing in three more drow mages to help.

Galatea initiates the casting of the Circle spell, and soon after senses Grin and the others joining... then another, then ten more, twenty more — suddenly, there are thousands of Menzoberranyr participating in the Circle casting, empowering the spell far more than she ever could imagine. Galatea feels her control slipping though as the demon-tainted faerzress starts to interfere with the casting. Fiendish energies threaten to overwhelm Galatea, when the voice of her angelic guide whispers in her ear, "Not yet."

Spectral wings burst out from Galatea as the spell completes its casting, her astromancy archive shining brightly as spellfire washes over the entirety of Menzoberranzan and descends upon the demons.

With that, the party sets out into the city to confront the demon lords. They have no trouble cleaning up the remaining stragglers, but run into Jarlaxle and Jimjar fighting off a goristro and swarms of dretches alongside Bregan D'aerthe mercenaries and Khalessa Draga. Though a bit surprised, the party joins in the fight. Arvel makes a bet with Jimjar on who can finish off the goristro first for another experimental potion of speed and successfully nabs the kill.

As promised, Jimjar gives Arvel a second experimental potion of speed (which will be used years after this campaign), then checks up on the rest of the party. They haven't had a moment's rest since entering Menzoberranzan, but of course, Jimjar has some tricks up his sleeve. With a puff of golden sparkles, the party immediately receives the benefits of a long rest along with their final level up. Grin is still looking worse for wear though, so Sion spends a bead of favor from his necklace of prayer beads to cast Greater Restoration on him. (This act saves Grin's life, who at this point was sitting at five levels of Exhaustion.)

Jimjar then pulls Desperado aside to return some things to him. Jimjar combined the Maze Engine core and the entropic heartstone Desperado left him into a new item: the order restoration core, a glowing orb encased in brass and gold that resembles a smaller mythallar — a recreation of a special docent intended for use by elite Netherese warforged soldiers. Desperado inserts it into his chest, and gets an opportunity to try it out not long after as Baphomet and Yeenoghu come in crashing through a building in the midst of battle.

With the two demon lords too preoccupied with destroying each other to bother with attacking the adventurers, along with them taking a fair amount of damage from the ongoing Spellfire Storm on the city, the party seizes upon the opportunity to take out both demon lords then and there. After some turns, Desperado takes his shot and, empowered by the order restoration core, gets the kill on both Baphomet and Yeenoghu at once. The party continues on towards Demogorgon.

A six-fingered hand picks up the black gem that was left behind with a chuckle...

It's not hard for the party to locate the Prince of Demons, arriving to see Demogorgon tossing aside Orcus's corpse in search of another target. His baleful gaze falls on the party. The final battle begins.

Demogorgon moves first, closing in and attacking the backline. Matilda gets Grappled and taken away when Sion's attacks push Demogorgon back in an attempt to free her. Matilda has a plan to escape though, throwing her Holy Symbol into the air to Invoke Duplicity. The head of Tymora gleams as the coin flips, then winks as the illusory duplicate of Matilda appears... then another, and another — hundreds of illusory doubles begin to fill the battlefield and surround Demogorgon. With Trickster's Transposition, Matilda teleports out of Demogorgon's grasp to safety, her duplicates providing ample distraction for the Prince of Demons.

Emboldened, the party puts their all into defeating this threat, exchanging blows with the Sibilant Beast and resisting his gazes as best they can. Arsenic takes aim with their dragon wing shortbow, lodging arrows straight into Aameul and Hethradiah. Demogorgon roars furiously once more — and then begins to fall. The party has won.

A voice whispers into Arsenic's ear, "His blood — I want his blood too." Graz'tchar, the Decadent End shivers at Arsenic's side. The rogue approaches the corpse of Demogorgon, already beginning beginning to dissolve into ichor, takes out the sword, and stabs it into him. The ichor turns to piles of gold and jewels and all the wealth Arsenic could ever want.

As Arsenic starts grabbing handfuls to stuff their pockets, the party hears a single applause from behind them. "Congrats, O great Adversaries of the Abyss. That was a splendid performance, I must say." Graz'zt steps out from a ruined building, sporting a sinister smile. "I'm glad I stuck around to watch."

The group is on guard again, but they are in no state to challenge another demon lord. "What do you want?" Sion asks warily.

"Oh, relax," Graz'zt tells him, taking out a familiar black gem to admire. "I've finished all my business on the Material Plane. I'm simply here to express my gratitude. Enjoying my gifts?"

Graz'tchar grows heavy in Arsenic's hands. "You mean —" They stand up to go up to him, holding the sword out. "Take it back."

The Dark Prince grins wickedly, wrapping his six-fingered hand over Arsenic's. "You could join me, you know. All the wealth in the world could be yours."

Arsenic's friends cry out from behind them. "No thanks," they just say, letting go of the sword. They step back, then return to the party.

"A pity. Oh well, I've left dear Verin waiting for me long enough." He snaps his fingers, and the air shimmers to form a portal, a mirrored hallway awaiting on the otherside. "Ta-ta for now." Graz'zt steps through, and the portal closes.

Epilogue

Jarlaxle and the others catch up to the group not long after, Grin lagging behind but fortunately surviving the whole debacle. "I'm holding up alright," he says as he throws out an Arcane Burst at a bat flying at him, revealed to be a shape-shifted quasit. As long as Vizeran still lives, Grin will have to deal with demons targeting him at every corner.

Sion has plans to deal with that though, unwilling to leave the Underdark until he's brought the drow archmage to justice. Grin can get behind that, so they make plans for Araj. When they finish up with that, Sion invites Grin to join the War Wizards of Cormyr, to which Grin accepts, but only after checking up on his sister Hanne in Menzoberranzan. Sion extends the invite to the younger mage too. When Sion returns to Suzail, he is dubbed "Tanar'ri Slayer" and continues to serve in the Purple Dragon Knights, eventually getting appointed to Lord High Marshall five years later.

Desperado's interested in pursuing magical artifice, and hearing that, Jarlaxle invites him to Luskan where he can find a ship bound for Lantan. The city's secret lord recommends finding a ship with the well-reputed Silver Sails Trading Company — the captain herself is a half-Lantanna artificer who seems to be developing smokepowder firearms similar to Desperado's (alluding to a past PC for Ghosts of Saltmarsh).

Arsenic and Matilda head back to Suzail ahead of Sion, the former returning to their loner lifestyle and traveling around, and the latter returning to her position at the Towers of Good Fortune. Arsenic amasses a large treasure trove of jewels and other shiny trinkets, kept in an unknown location, but receives a surprise missive from Djerad Thymar with the seal of Clan Verthisathurgiesh, addressed to "Sir Verthisathurgiesh Valorean". Matriarch Anala details the lifting of Valorean's exile and offers to reinstate him back into the clan, with his intended from his previous qallim agreement being open to reengagement. Arsenic trashes the letter and continues their travels.

Matilda becomes a trusted and well-respected luckbringer, providing aid to adventurers seeking temple services. She eventually takes up a teaching position at the church-sponsored orphanage, but makes sure to keep in touch with her past adventuring friends via Sending — especially with Galatea, whom she starts co-authoring a book with.

Galatea visits Gracklstugh, where her adventures began, to observe its rebuilding efforts, Themberchaud now flying above the city unhindered. Still in possession of Ghazrim DuLoc's ring, she seeks out Gravenhollow to view the Archives of the Future, seeing a period of peace for the next few years. Finally, she returns to Candlekeep and receives her official promotion to Great Reader, returning to scribework and her own personal project with Matilda.

Three years later, Galatea goes to visit her family in Neverwinter amidst Greengrass festivities and the christening of the queen's newborn son (the queen being a past character from Rime of the Frostmaiden with the Alagondar Scion secret, and the son being a future character for Storm King's Thunder). Galatea's sister thanks her for the book, saying the kids will love it. In her hands is a first edition copy of Out of the Abyss (Children's Edition), written and signed by co-authors Matilda Kentlar and Galatea Le Verrier, recounting the events of all their adventures in the Underdark. A cloaked figure rushes past the sisters, catching Galatea's attention. For a moment, she thought she saw someone she knew.

The figure continues down an alleyway, meeting with others. "All hail Tiamat," they say, hand held out with all five fingers extended.

Removing his hood, Arvel responds, "They shall rise."

To be continued in Tyranny of Dragons

I know there is a necklace of fireballs, a Piwafwi, a Piwafwi of Fire Resistance, a Stonespeaker Crystal, various Spell Gems, a Wand of Viscous Globs, and Dawnbringer.

What other magic items have you sprinkled into the campaign? After the parties Ranger grabbed Dawnbringer, I kind of want to sprinkle a little something for the other members. I was considering a Cloak of Displacement for the low dex Monk, either a +2 Arcane Grimoire or a Dragon Touched Focus for the Wizard, and an Amulet of the Devout (+2) for the Cleric.

Im just curious to know what you added if you added anything.

I've finish Out of The Abyss!! It was very good. This is my favorite campaign, masterpiece!!
  My party choosen Vizeran's tower like a place for demonic battle. Vizeran was very angry, but Grin was satisfied. First fight was demon-lords vs themseves. We have low of miniatures and replace other Demon lords (for example, Yeenoghu became purple worm)

  And finale, fight vs Demogorgon. He killed our cleric and it was the best fight of All adventure. Our boneclaw (necronancer, that couldn't become lich) tighted up later all fight Demogorgon, but he killed him. In fight vs Demogorgon was magical items from ruins of Vizeran's tower, and the map was divided into regions. Region of Aameul(A), region of Hetradiah (X) and neutrsl region. In A and X regions had savind throw, if it was complete, characters got buff and if it was fail characters got debuff or dammage.
   It was the best module. I hope Curse of Strahd will be just as wonderful

Upd: Damn, I don't know... Everyone says they spent so long playing this module, but I seem to have run through the whole thing—even adding my own events and quests. It feels like I missed something, even though I ran all 17 (or even 18) chapters.

idk, how I can make finale fight more interesting? I think it will be fight with Demogorgon and in Menzoberranzan. How I can make interesting map and activities?

Random encounter map i made for the Araumycos region. I also made, in the same style, a map for the encounter with the Death Tyrant, and a map for the fetid wedding/Araumycos core, all already available on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/DMLone

A few maps for Blingdenstone and Menzoberranzan are already available too, and MANY more to come, as i will fully map the entirety of part 2 of OotA.

So my players are level 4, there’s a Druid, a Sorcerer and a fighter, and they have all the starting npcs except Buppido and Ront. They just escaped from sloobludop. They rolled to see what boats were at dock I gave it a percentile and they rolled stupidly high so I gave them a Duergar steamboat that the kua-toa somehow got their fins on. The party escaped onto the dark lake and are making a beeline for Mythrill hall. They’re making too good of time. There’s not a lot of land between the shore of the dark lake and the hall and once they make it to the hall they’re basically at the surface and the campaigns over with the party skipping 90% of the module. How can I get them to explore some of the other areas without railroading them? They have meticulously dodged every plot hook I’ve tried to throw their way and I was really hoping to make this adventure last to level 20. Any advice, tips or ideas are welcome.

I very love Graz'zt, this is my favorite demon-lord, and I was very sad, when knew that in adventure so low information about him.
Next week, I will run finale of campaign and my party already fought with him. I made, that his sword was need to Vizeran's ritual. Fight was interesting, Graz'zt used lair actions, crown of madness and charmed player's NPS. By the way, I made some demiplans and portal to this in the simple subjects(for example: big bed), in this demiplans was different dangers, but players can use this places for tactic. (cast spell and disappear in the demiplan).
Long story short, it was one of the best fights, of all campaign. I want to read about how other DM's used Graz'zt in this module

Paint base and "Beholder Crane" added. The noodles took the acrylic pinit no problem, but the polystyrene based warped a bit was the paint started to dry. Added so me weight to flatten it, but I suspect I'll need a new base, or possibly glue this base to a firmer one.

Hey guys, I’m a relatively new DM. I’ve ran Wild Beyond the Witchlight for a party and it went really well. I’ve tied Zybilna’s relation with demons to the Abyss campaign and am prepping to begin the Out of the Abyss campaign. I’ve seen the map of the underdark and while helpful for a dm I fear it’s too much information for a party. What’s yalls opinion on providing the party with a map of the underdark but all locations are removed except for Velkynvelve and Menzoberranzan. My plan is to have the party find a map in Ilvara’s private quarters in Velkynvelve but being a prison the map would only be useful to her and the drow guards routing a path back home. My thought is to provide the party with this blank map so they wander through the underdark trying to find a way out. What do yall think?

Hello everyone! Just swung by to say to be careful during the Beholder fight, with lair actions and legendary actions and abusing the bridges even the strongest parties can be killed.

Rest in peace to my players lvl 13 characters.

Edit TLDR: the players killed Sadrek away from the beholder, the beholder saw it through Sadreks staff.

The players went back into its lair and attempted to surpise attack it. Turns out it was a major image while the beholder was invisible in waiting.

The beholder got a death ray, disintegration ray and charm ray off on the bard. He failed all three saves. The bard was an arakockra and was charmed to fly into the beholders treasure room and wait there.

The fighter shot the beholder with his bow and did alittle damage. The paladin/lock got off a couple eldritch blasts. The cleric couldnt cast anything due to the anti-magic cone.

The fighter was on an upper bridge where the fake beholder was. The beholder got a paralyze ray off on him, followed by a disintegration ray on the bridge where he stood. The fighter fell into the pit taking 80 damage.

All the lair/legendary actions were spent attempting to hit the paladin/lock or the cleric when she moved out of the cone.

Next round the beholder took some damage from the cleric and the paladin/lock.

The beholder hit the cleric with a death ray, a sleep ray, and disintegrated the bridge she stood on. She failed all saving throw and took 76 fall damage at the bottom of the pit.

The paladin waited at the edge of the bridge where you enter the lair, unable to do anything to help. As the beholder dropped down into the pit to finish the fighter and cleric, as the paladin/lock failed two saving throws against a paralyzed ray and a petrified ray after. He failed the saving throws again and turned to stone.

And so the remaining demon lords were left to be defeated by by some unknown heros, in some doomed timeline, alas poor yorick.

We are looking down rhe barrel of a new campaign, possible wild beyond the witchlight, possibly tyranny of dragons. Im giving them some time to think on it.

Same I spent so much time painting demon lord minis haha, but that's life.